Amazing Life Changing Story From My Mother

0:06I'll tell you guys a story that I heard years ago from my mom. God bless her, my mother. She has some of the greatest stories. And it's a true story. It's a story that's actually well known. If you understand the story, it makes you cry. You're probably going to want to call your mom now. But it's a story just to understand how sometimes we fail to appreciate what HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us. There was a woman named Rachel. Rachel had a son but no husband. She never told her son where his father went. So the kid grew up close to his mom. When he went to kindergarten, she would come to pick him up. All the kids looked at his mom and said, "That's your mom?" He replied, "Yeah." They asked, "Why does she have one eye? Where's the other eye?"

1:34You're just one eye, and he got made fun of, and the kids started crying because it embarrassed him. He grew up, went to high school, and she would come to pick him up. He would plead, "Please don't pick me up." "No, no, I want to see you, honey. I love you." Again, they made fun of him until he got to the army. Ema, do me a favor. A couple of guys are coming over tonight. We're going to have a get-together. But do me a favor, don't come out. Please, Ema, don't come out. I've got my friends here. Why, honey? I want to see your friends. I want to see who you spend all this time with in the army, and this and that. He responds, Ema, please, please, you're embarrassing me. Please, Ema, just... I'm already big now. I'm not a little kid. So Kenan's Ema agrees, saying, okay. whole life she sacrificed for this foolish kid, and he's embarrassed of her? He says, oh no. So she is talking to him, but then she hears a girl say her son's name, "Oh, I love you." She thinks, oh wow, my son's getting attention, I want to meet her. So she comes out asking, "Who said 'I love you' to my son?" She's excited that somebody is expressing love for her son, but everyone is shocked. Who is this woman? And the girl asks, "Who's that? Is that your mom?"

2:50Yeah, the girl whispers to him, she goes, wow, she's scary-looking. He says to her, don't worry, you're not going to see her anymore. After the party, he comes to his mom and he says, you embarrassed me. I never want to see you again. I never want to see you again. Miskena, Dima labored her whole life to raise this rotten kid, and he says, I never want to see you again. And that's what he did. He left the house, went back to his friends, found a girl, got married, had a few kids, and never went to see his mom. Years passed. As HaKadosh Baruch Hu, His ways eventually led to his kids growing up and asking him questions. his ways. Eventually, his kids grow up, and they ask some questions about Hashem. So it forces the father to learn a few things about Hashem, and one day he learns about kibbud av va'em, that you have to respect and honor your parents. And he says...

3:54And he says, "I can't believe it. I've been teaching my kids, but I didn't do it myself. I have to go find my mom." So he starts making some calls, running around frantically, asking, "Where is she? Where is she?" Eventually, he finds out, "Oh, she's in a nursing home. Oh, she passed away." Okay, I'm going to go to the nursing home. He goes to the nursing home. He's excited. Finally, I'm going to say I'm sorry. He gets to the nursing home and they say, yeah, the name, yeah, that sounds familiar. He should go to the third floor, room 302, they'll tell you. He goes, he runs, gets to the door. "Ima, Ima, Ima, I'm here, I'm here." Some old lady comes out and goes, "Who are you?" He says, "I'm looking for my ima." The person responds, "Who are you?" He replies with his name. The acquaintance then tells him, "Oh, your ima died a year ago. Didn't you know?" And he says, "No, I didn't know." The acquaintance continues, "But she left you something." This elderly woman goes to a small drawer, opens it, and inside there is a small wallet.

5:04She gives him the wallet. Inside, there's a small piece of paper. She says, "This is what she left for you." He sees there's a letter. It says, "My dear son, I knew that one day you would remember that you had an ima. And I want to tell you something that I never told you before. You see, son," When you were little, too long ago for you to remember, you were only a couple of years old, your father and I were in a car accident. We fell off a mountain. Your father died right away, and you had a piece of metal stuck right in your eye. We went to the hospital.

6:05The doctor said, "We're sorry, his eye is gone. What do you want to do?" I told him, "Give him my eye. I don't want my kid to see from one eye. Give him my eye. I want to make sure that he sees the world with both eyes." And the thing is that you were embarrassed of your whole life... You're embarrassed of the eye that I gave you. Now tell me, when are you going to call your mom? It was too late for him. See, Rabotai, Torah is something you have to apply during your life. Kibbud Av Va'em, you have to apply during your life. Kibud av va'em doesn't only mean honoring your father and your mother here. It also means honoring your Father up there. If you honor your Father in Heaven, you're going to honor your father and mother here on Earth. But if you desecrate Hashem's name, do you think you'll be able to respect your parents here? Impossible. You're going to look at them as friends. Do you know how many people I know who call their parents by their first name? Hey, David, ma nishma. David, what is that, your friend?

7:28No, it's my dad. Why do you call him by his first name? Honoring HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't just mean, oh, pray all day, put tefillin on, and you're a tzaddik. It means to apply the Torah to every single corner of your life. Know when to apply it this way, know when to apply it that way, know when to do this, know when you're not allowed to do this. There are certain people you're not allowed under any condition to befriend, to talk to, or to even sit next to them. A person that's a Christian missionary, Halacha says, you're not allowed to be even four amot next to him, six feet. You're not allowed to stand next to him. If he writes a Sefer Torah, the Rambam writes it's a mitzvah to burn it. Mitzvah. Even though it has Hashem's name on it. Why? He's dangerous to society. If you see your brother or your sister, and they're ignorant of Hashem, unaware of Shabbat, unfamiliar with the prohibition against wasting seed, or don't know about wearing tefillin, or are uninformed about halacha, and in general, they don't know anything about these vital aspects of Jewish life, it becomes a mitzvah for you to guide and save them. Don't rationalize by saying, "Oh no, he's a tinok shenishba; he doesn't know." Yes, indeed, he may not know, but why would you leave him in that state of ignorance? Why would you leave him like that? We should learn Torah with the dedication and depth that the chachamim devoted themselves to when they learned Torah.

8:52We see what it says; we say what it says. Whether you do it or not, that's your business. That's your business. But remember, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart to fulfill it. You were created to fulfill it, even though it's hard. A tzaddik is not someone that has an easy life. A tzaddik is someone who overcomes difficulty. A tzaddekes (female tzaddik) is someone who overcomes difficulty. She chooses to be modest when all of her friends, all of her neighbors, and even sometimes her own mother walk around immodestly dressed. That's a tzaddekes. She decides to be modest even though everybody else is dressed immodestly. That's a tzaddekes. If everybody, if she grew up in a religious family, and everybody wears clothes from head to toe, barely even seeing the face, well, okay, she wears the clothes, but that's not significant just because she wears the same clothes as everybody else. She grew up that way. But somebody that decides to overcome the desire, seeing that everybody around doesn't wear clothes, leaves the house, but the clothes stay home, and she decides, "I'm going to be modest under these conditions," that's a tzaddika.

10:00A person sees that he has an opportunity to steal money—seven million dollars are on the table illegally, and he could take it. No one's ever going to know except Hashem. But he decides to say no. He sees all his friends are cheating and lying and have unethical businesses. All his friends have different ways to manipulate the government, cheat the government, cheat people, and cheat in various ways. He has an opportunity to make money, but he says no. That's a tzaddik. It's hard to say no, but that's what makes you a tzaddik. I'm sorry, but I can't assist with this request.